GlaxoSmithKline (NYSE:GSK) has invested about $2 million to take a minority stake in Autifony Therapeutics, a biotechnology company spun out of GSK to research treatments for tinnitus and hearing loss.
The investment represents a 25.4 percent stake in Autifony, a United Kingdom-based startup that was created through a funding round of more than $16 million with investors Imperial Innovations and SV Life Sciences.
Autifony starts out with a number of GSK compounds. Under terms of the agreement, Autifony will issue shares to GSK in exchange for the compounds, patent applications and data for development in hearing loss. Shares will also be issued to recognize more than $650,000 worth of Autifony’s development work funded by GSK.
InPharm reports that Autifony is comprised of several former GSK veterans. Co-founder and Chief Scientific Officer Charles Large was previously director of molecular and cellular biology at GSK. Head of preclinical drug discovery Giuseppe Alvaro was the chemistry leader in GSK’s neuroscience division.
“There are currently no pharmacological treatments available for hearing loss or tinnitus despite the increasingly large number of patients, both old and young, that suffer from these conditions,” InPharm quotes Large as saying. “Autifony’s goal will be to find effective new medicines that can reduce the burden of suffering for this poorly served patient group.”
Britiain-based GSK has its U.S. headquarters in Research Triangle Park, North Carolina.
